Tag: Sydney Morning Herald

The ramifications of last week’s leak of internal documents from the Heartland Institute — the US lobby group up to its neck in organised climate denial in the US, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and perhaps elsewhere — continue to make news. The Sydney Morning Heraldreports that Heartland money was used to fund Aussie climate denial campaigners in 2009 and 2010, with funds channelled through the “American Climate Science Coalition” — a member of the coterie of climate “science” coalitions spun off from the New Zealand original with Heartland funding. Heartland’s charitable status in the US — which allows donors to the group to claim a 30% tax deduction (effectively a tax-payer subsidy of Heartland activities) — is being called into question as a result of the latest Mashey report into the links between Fred Singer and Heartland, and the dodgy nature of Heartland’s overseas grants. There have also been calls for some of Heartland’s large corporate donors to cease providing financial support for an organisation so steeped in climate denial.

Alert readers may have noted my absence over the last few days: Bryan’s been doing all the hard work while I swanned off to Sydney (wedding anniversary, 25th, for the celebration of). And so I’ve been reading the Sydney Morning Herald. Saturday’s edition featured this “interesting” take on the state of denial in Australia, in which a key player — John Roskam, executive director of right wing think tank the Institute of Public Affairs — chortles about the success of his denial campaign. It’s a long article, but the thing that really caught my eye was this succinct poem by John Bryant on page 37 of the Spectrum section:

An Open Letter to Climate Sceptics

Among your loved ones choose
— when the sweet airs fail,
when the rivers run dry —
the hand of whom to hold
until the last breath,
until the last cry.